The Oxford Companion to Irish History

Nagle, Nano ( 1718-84), founder of the Presentation *nuns. Nagle was the daughter of a Catholic landowning family in Ballygriffin, Co. Cork.
She operated six poor-schools in Cork city from
the 1750s, and in 1771 invited the French Ursulines
to take over one of these. Unsatisfied with their
performance, she set up her own congregation,
the Sisters of the Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in 1776; the first of the modern,
socially active congregations in Ireland, it was intended as a sisterhood without enclosure, and
with a multidimensional function of work among
the poor. The formal papal recognition of the congregation as the Presentation nuns in 1802, some
years after Nagle's death, imposed strict enclosure
upon the sisterhood, limiting them to the work of
teaching. The congregation nevertheless holds 1776 rather than 1802 as its foundation date.

CC

Nangle, Edward, see SECOND REFORMATION.

Napoleonic wars, see REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC WARS.

Nary, Cornelius ( 1658-1738), Catholic priest and
controversialist. The son of a Co. Kildare farmer,
he was educated at the Irish College, Paris, and
became parish priest of St Michan's, Dublin,
around 1699. His best-known work, The Case of the
Roman Catholics of Ireland, arguing that proposed
new *penal laws were unnecessary and a breach
of the treaty of * Limerick, though commonly said
to have been published anonymously in 1723, first
appears in a collection printed in 1742. Nary engaged in public debate with several Protestant
clergymen, including Edward Synge, archbishop
of Tuam. His translation of the New Testament
( 1718) was condemned in Rome as unsound.

Nation, a weekly newspaper founded in October
1842 to promote the campaign for *repeal and to
disseminate the ideas of cultural nationalism.
Owned and edited by Charles Gavan *Duffy in
collaboration with
Thomas *Davis and
John Blake *Dillon
, the Nation was the mouthpiece of *Young Ireland. With an initial print-run of 12,000
copies, the paper was widely distributed through
repeal reading rooms, and claimed a readership of
250,000. The Nation was suppressed in 1848 and
revived by Duffy in 1849. It continued until 1897,
but never regained the impact of its early years.

PHG

national anthems, like *flags, have a contentious history. 'God Save the King', accepted from
the early 19th century as the British national anthem, became in Ireland, and in * Northern Ireland has remained, an important expression of *unionist allegiance. Up to 1914, its most popular
nationalist rival was T. D. Sullivan 'God Save Ireland' ( 1867), commemorating the *Manchester
martyrs, which became the unofficial anthem of
the *Irish parliamentary party. From 1912, however, the *Irish Volunteers chose as their marching song 'The Soldier's Song' (first published 1912), by
Peadar Kearney ( 1883- 1942) and
Patrick Heeney
(d. 1911). In 1926 this was adopted, despite
apparent reservations concerning its suitability, as
the national anthem of the *Irish Free State. De *Valera's appropriation for a political party of the
opening words of the 1923 Irish version ('Sinne
Fianna Fail'--'we are the soldiers of destiny') was
apparently unintentional, but attempts to replace
'Fianna' with 'laochra' (heroes) never gained general acceptance. The resurgence of political violence in Northern Ireland from 1969 has
sharpened reservations concerning the anthem's
romantic militarism.

National Archives, see PUBLIC RECORDS.

National Association, formally instituted in Dublin in December 1864 to facilitate
co-operation between Irish Catholics and English
radicals, specifically with a view to promoting
*disestablishment. The initiative had come from William J. O'Neill Daunt ( 1807-94), a former aide
of * O'Connell, who had established contact with John Bright and the English Liberation Society
and then drawn in Archbishop Patrick Leahy of
Cashel, John Blake *Dillon, and a group of Dublin

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